Warforged- change Integrated Protection

[Warforged DK]

So, I absolutely love Warforged as a race, but Integrated Protection just bugs me. It makes upper limits of AC too high and makes heavy armor Warforged have the equivalent of Plate at lvl 1.
What would be the overall effect of having Warforged have DR 1 to nonmagical weapons? Doesn’t scale, but stacks with Heavy Armor Master. I know a flat +1 AC is too much, but I wonder if a flat 1 DR is too little.

 

[Blue]

I'm not sure I'm understanding. Are you saying to take away all warforged AC, make them wear normal armor, and give them DR 1 (stacking)?

I'm making a jump there, but after saying it's too powerful of a defensive feature I can't see the suggestion to add DR 1 on top of it.

For me, having integral armor is part of what makes the race unique. I could see toning it down if you feel it's too high, but I wouldn't want to remove it.

Now, an alternate to toning it down would be to harken back to their mechanics when they were first introduced and put in issues with healing them. But that might be a big shift in intended play of 5e with self-healing and the like. Perhaps the self-healing is the place to play - require skill rolls to spend HD maybe.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To an extent, it depends on how common magic armor (which they can't wear) is in a game. They also can't benefit from the "defense" fighting style, and a couple of feats.

I might be inclined to reduce all the values by one point.

 

[jaelis]

I think it makes more sense to have different subraces with different types of integral armor. Being able to change it out is weird to me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The upper limit also bugs me. I liked the Idea of just being able to graft armor on a warforged.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

Right now, it is a broken feature. If they change the math to light armor = 10+1/2 proficiency bonus (rounded up)+Dex mod/medium armor = 13+1/2 proficiency bonus (rounded up) + Dex mod (max 2)/heavy armor = 14+proficiency bonus the numbers would work well. Those will be the values I use in my game. (For those who are bad at math, that gives you roughly a +1 AC over other characters of a comparable level, and it gives you an upper-end number that is exactly 1 point of AC higher than the higher end numbers of other characters.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hypothetically, a 20th level character might have +3 full plate, defense fighting style and heavy armour specialist feat. So, not so much.

As I said, a lot depends on the availability of magic items.

 

[Warforged DK]

Thanks for all the replies guys.
Here's the version of Integrated Armor I'm looking at houseruling in to my game:

Warforged are able to attach and embed components, including armor. Attaching armor uses 3/4 the weight of regular armor, and it can't be removed by another person (without your permission). Any armor may be attached, including magical armor, but magical armor must be adjusted to fit a warforged.
While a Warforged has armor attached, the Warforged gains Damage Reduction 1 to all non-magical bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage. At level 6, you gain Damage Reduction 1 to all damage except psychic damage.

The idea is that Warforged no longer change out their armor at a rest. Because they now wear armor, they can benefit from Defense Fighting Style.
Having a Warforged change out armor at rest means that the hybrid Fighter 1/Rogue 1 could effectively get 18 AC at level 2, for the times when it knows it's a combat heavy day, and then switch out to lesser armor for when it needs to sneak.
I don't want to mess with anything of +proficiency or +1/2 proficiency right now. Straight Damage reduction makes more sense to me, but I know that it's stronger than a flat +1 HP/level.

 

[Warforged DK]

Hypothetically, a 20th level character might have +3 full plate, defense fighting style and heavy armour specialist feat. So, not so much.

As I said, a lot depends on the availability of magic items.

Not so much- As written, Warforged gain no benefit from wearing armor.
I want to change that- so they do gain benefit from armor.
Lvl 2 Warforged with heavy armor, shield, Defensive Fighting Style is (16+6+2+1= 25AC) Human fighter with +3 Plate, Shield, Defensive Fighting Style is (18+3+2+1= 24 AC)
I think a static DR 1 is a fair tradeoff for +1 AC.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

Having warforged wear armor misses the point. They are designed as self-sufficient tools of war who don't need to worry about equipment because the equipment they need is, for the most part, built into their bodies. Weapons are the exception (in order to keep the war-machines modular). The appropriate way to give them magic item bonuses is not via built-in racial benefits or the ability to wear actual armor but rather magic-item warforged components that let them treat their natural armor as if it was enchanted when those components are embedded in the warforged. Additionally, the RAI would still allow warforged to benefit from Defensive Fighting. When using integrated armor, Keith Baker has stated that the intent is to treat the warforged as if they are wearing armor (for the purposes of class or feat based benefits).